The present invention relates to a ring manufacturing method of manufacturing a single ring into a plurality of rings, a ring manufacturing apparatus, and rings manufactured by the ring manufacturing method.
Mokume-gane (wood-grain metal) is a Japanese special world-class metalworking technique. Special processing steps of the mokume-gane technique cannot be simply categorized as a technique, and reach even realms of ideology and mind, that is, are carried out through interaction between materials and a craftsperson.
In the mokume-gane technique, first, metal plate members having different colors are laminated in several layers, bonded to each other, and subjected to a twisting process or other processes. Then, surfaces of a laminate of those metal plate members are chiseled or engraved with a drilling tool, and flattened by forging with a hammer. In this way, a wood-grain pattern is formed on those surfaces.
Incidentally, at the time of forming a pair of matching rings by the mokume-gane technique, there is a request for forming common characteristic patterns on the pair of matching rings.
Hitherto, a metal plate that is obtained by executing the twisting process or other processes on the laminate of the plurality of metal plates is cut into two metal plates, and then those metal plates are processed into rings. By this related-art ring manufacturing method using the mokume-gane technique, the common characteristic patterns can be formed on those two rings obtained from the single metal plate.